ANAHEIM, Calif. — If you're going to spray the bed of your shiny new pickup truck with a thick coat of protective plastic, why stop there?

The spray-in bedliner industry is starting to find a new business opportunity among pickup owners who are having the whole truck covered in the vinyl-like substance, not just the cargo box.

For years, aftermarket bedliner services occupied a nice little corner of the automotive business, offering pure practicality — a coating that protects pickup beds from dings and scratches. Now it finds itself on the cutting edge of car fashion among owners who want to take the macho appearance to the extreme.

"I like the overall look, the ruggedness," says Jesus Aguiniga of Whittier, Calif., as he watches his 2010 Toyota Tundra getting sprayed nose to tailgate in bedliner material at a Line-X Protective Coatings franchisee here, one of many shops around the country that specialize in spraying on bedliners.

The trend is still fairly young. Line-X spokeswoman Cristin Liveoak says its franchisees around the country report that they're getting sporadic requests for a total body spray job. The "craze" hasn't been as much of a surprise as it as been "a natural progression" of the bedliner business.

Not just pickups are getting the treatment. Some customers have brought in golf carts, tractors, ATVs or other off-road vehicles for the all-over job, she says. Some don't just go for a mundane dark gray but rather choose a desert tan to give the vehicle a military look. It helps that customizers have taken to flat, or matte, paint tones in the past few years to give their vehicles a more sinister appearance than traditional glistening paint jobs.

A Toyota Tundra painted with LINE-X, a spray-on protective coating, maneuvers during a photo shoot in the desert. (Photo: Line-X)

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The process doesn't come cheap, however. The total body spray's cost at Line-X varies, ranging generally from $3,000 to $5,000. That compares with $450 to $550 for a standard bedliner spray, Liveoak says.

Still, it should last the lifetime of the vehicle, she adds. Owners will never have to wax their pickups again. And off-roaders, in particular, will appreciate that they won't have to worry about scratches on their paint from tree branches or other hazards. The coating is about a sixteenth of an inch, thicker a standard paint job.

"You don't have to wash it," says franchisee Justin Lovejoy, who co-owns the Anaheim shop. But the idea of coating an entire vehicle is catching on fairly slowly. He says he gets only a handful of requests, compared with 60 to 80 trucks brought in for bedliner treatments every month.

It's "for the guy who wants something completely different," Lovejoy says. To generate interest, Line-X had a Chevrolet Camaro sprayed inside and out in bedliner. The material shows up on door panels and the dashboard, even on engine parts.

Line-X, which is based in Huntsville, Ala., and is one of the nation's largest bedliner services, isn't alone in seeing the phenomenon. Rival Rhino Linings, based in San Diego, says its customers are showing interest, as well.

"We are definitely seeing an increase in customers asking about the outside of their vehicles being sprayed. They think it looks cool or gives the vehicle a rugged, tough factor," says spokeswoman Jenny Clifford. She estimates that spraying the entire vehicle, a labor-intensive process, costs more than $1,500.

"We always love to see new and different applications with our product, when it's done correctly," Clifford adds.

Aguiniga, 27, says he was already sold on the ruggedness of a bedliner from what he experienced on the job. He works in the construction and demolition business, often requiring him to haul concrete bags and other materials that can be rough on trucks.

He says he looks forward to not having to go through the ritual cleaning of his truck in the future. "I can save on car washes."